The
first funding from a £90 million fund that aims to
revolutionise how food is produced and dramatically reduce
its environmental impact launches later this month.

The
Transforming Food Production Challenge, part of the
government’s modern Industrial Strategy, will bring together
the UK’s world-leading agri-food sector with robotics,
satellite, data and digital technologies and artificial
intelligence to make the UK a world leader in the precision
farming techniques needed to make sure the planet is able to
feed a population of nine billion people by 2050.

The Challenge, funded through the
government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF), will
help to fuel rural growth, create high-skilled jobs and open
up new export opportunities while reducing pollution and
minimising waste and soil erosion.

A
Californian jury which awarded $290 million to a school
groundskeeper who blamed his terminal cancer on exposure to
glyphosate lacked scientific expertise, according to the
NFU.

The
union’s deputy president, Guy Smith, made the remarks
shortly after two UK DIY giants, Homebase and B&Q, confirmed
they would be reviewing the safety of the weedkillers they
sell in light of the US judgement.

Both the European Food Safety Authority
(EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) have
concluded glyphosate is ‘unlikely to pose a carcinogenic
hazard to humans’.

An
international research team have uncovered the hidden
genetic secrets that give wheat its remarkable ability for
local adaptation - revealing a previously untapped resource
for breeding better, more resilient wheat.

Globally, wheat, together with maize and rice, provides the
most human nutrition. It can thrive in a whole range of
different environments, even within a similar geographical
region.

Exploring one hundred different wheat
lines worldwide, the research team led by the Earlham
Institute in collaboration with Helmholtz Zentrum München,
University of Liverpool and the John Innes Centre have
revealed a trove of epigenetic variation that was previously
unknown to current genotyping methods.

Scientists have identified a key gene that helps seeds
decide whether to germinate. The MFT gene stops seeds
germinating in the dark or under shady conditions, where
their chances of survival would be poor, according to new
research from the University of York.

The study, conducted on Arabidopsis, a
very close relative of oilseed rape, increases our
understanding of one of the most important stages in the
life cycle of a plant and may help to improve the seed
quality of agricultural crops in the future.

UK
horticultural growers could get access to new sources of
funding in order to invest in technologies post-Brexit.
That’s according to Farming Minister George Eustice, who is
seeking to reassure growers concerned about the impact of
Brexit on their businesses.

In an exclusive interview with AHDB's
The Grower
magazine, he said there’s an opportunity in the way
government is designing future policy so farmers can invest
in new equipment and new technology.

“There’s an opportunity for
horticulture to get access to that kind of support in the
future in a way that it perhaps didn’t in the past,” Mr
Eustice said.

Researchers in the Highlands of Scotland are giving farmed
salmon feed made from genetically modified crops.

The
aim of the scientific trial is to increase the nutritional
value of the fish.

The feed is rich in healthy
fish oils, which the team hope will be absorbed by the
salmon. more

BBC News, 1 August 2018

'Far-reaching consequences': Bayer to appeal against EU
verdict on neonics

Agri-chemical giant Bayer is to appeal against the recent
European Union verdict on neonicotinoids, saying it will
have "far-reaching consequences".

The
German giant will appeal against the recent ruling of the
General Court of the European Union in Case T-429/13. The
Court ruled that the European Commission’s decision from
2013, which restricted the use of certain neonicotinoids,
was lawful.

But Bayer said
it is concerned that the verdict, announced in May, could
have "far-reaching consequences" for the "certainty and
predictability" of active substance approvals in the EU. By
appealing against the verdict, the agri-chemical company
said it aims to ensure that some general interpretations of
the crop protection law established by the court are
re-considered. more

Farmers Guardian, 30 July 2018

US Agriculture Secretary slams European ruling on
gene editing

Last week's European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling
which subjected gene editing (GE) to the same regulations
which cover genetic modification (GM) has been slammed by
the USA. Sonny Perdue, the US Agriculture Secretary, branded
the ruling a 'setback' in an extraordinarily critical
statement.

unnecessary barriers or unjustifiably stigmatising new
technologies. Unfortunately, this week's ECJ ruling is a
setback in this regard in that it narrowly considers newer
genome editing methods to be within the scope of the EU's
regressive and outdated regulations governing GMOs. We
encourage the EU to seek input from the scientific and
agricultural communities, as well as its trading partners,
in determining the appropriate implementation of the
ruling." more

Farmers Guardian

, 30 July 2018

Bayer, BASF to pursue plant gene editing elsewhere after EU
ruling

Bayer and BASF, among Europe’s largest makers of farm
supplies, all but ruled out pursuing genetic plant breeding
at home after the EU ruled the technology should be
regulated like genetically modified organisms (GMO).

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said on Wednesday
mutagenesis-based gene-editing methods such as CRISPR/Cas9,
which can rearrange targeted bits of DNA, fall under rules
that now apply to genetic modification via strands of DNA
from a different species.

“As we run a global platform, it would mean that basically
these applications of these instruments would not be used in
Europe and Germany. So overall, that does not impact us as a
company too much, but as a European, I’m worried about what
that means to the Europeans,” Chief Executive Martin
Brudermueller told analysts in a call on Friday.
more

Reuters, 27 July 2018

State-of-the-art agri-tech building a tribute to ‘brilliant’
RAU professor

A
state-of-the-art building packed with the latest technology
to help new rural and agri-tech enterprises grow has been
opened at the Royal Agricultural University.

The
Alliston Centre is a tribute to Professor John Alliston, who
tragically died last year. He had worked for the RAU for
more than 20 years.

The Alliston Centre is the culmination
of a £4.2m project which will support both rural and
agri-tech businesses.

Industry is railing against the ruling
published yesterday by the European Court of Justice (ECJ)
that classifies plants from mutagenesis techniques as GMOs.

The European Seed Association (ESA) described it as a
watershed moment for the EU’s agri-food chain.

“It is now likely that much of the potential of these
innovative methods will be lost for Europe - with
significant negative economic and environmental
consequences. That strikes a serious blow to European
agriculture and plant science,”​
said Garlich von Essen, ESA Secretary General.

Gene editing is GM, says European Court

The European Court of Justice has ruled that altering living
things using the relatively new technique of genome editing
counts as genetic engineering.

Until now, gene editing, involving the precise replacement
of one DNA sequence with another, has been a grey area.
Traditional genetic engineering involves the less precise
insertion of foreign DNA into an organism.

It would mean any novel
food developed with the help of gene editing would need to
be labelled as GM. more

BBC News, 25 July 2018

Battle lines drawn as EU court weighs fate of gene-edited
crops

Gene
editing in agriculture takes centre stage next Wednesday
when Europe’s highest court rules in a case that could
determine the fate of the technology that is already making
waves in the field of medicine.

The
European Union has long restricted the use of genetically
modified organisms (GMOs) widely adopted around the world,
but there is legal uncertainty as to whether modern gene
editing of crops should fall under the same strict GMO
rules.

The European Court of Justice
(ECJ) will rule whether the use of genetic mutation, or
mutagenesis, which is now exempt from GMO rules, should
differentiate between techniques that have been used for
decades and the new gene-editing technology. more

Reuters, 20 July 2018

New report identifies five breakthroughs
to address urgent challenges and advance food and
agricultural sciences by 2030

A new
report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering,
and Medicine identifies the most promising scientific
breakthroughs that are possible to achieve in the next
decade to increase the U.S. food and agriculture system’s
sustainability, competitiveness, and resilience.

The urgent progress needed today, given
challenges such as water scarcity, increased weather
variability, floods, and droughts, requires a convergent
research approach that harnesses advances in data science,
materials science, information technology, behavioral
sciences, economics, and many other fields.

The UK
government has set out its proposals for future trade on
agriculture and food products between the EU after it leaves
the bloc next March.

In a
White Paper published on Thursday (13 July), prime minister
Theresa May proposes an “economic partnership” with the EU
post Brexit, which would include a free-trade agreement with
a common rulebook for agri-food products.

This arrangement would see “no tariffs
applied on any goods” traded between the UK and EU bloc and
therefore avoid the need for a hard border and tariffs on
agri-food products traded between Northern Ireland and
Ireland.

A wild banana that may hold the key to
protecting the world's edible banana crop has been put on
the extinction list. It is found only in Madagascar, where
there are just five mature trees left in the wild.

Scientists say the plant needs to be
conserved, as it may hold the secret to keeping bananas safe
for the future.

Most
bananas consumed around the world are of a type known as the
Cavendish, which is vulnerable to a plant pest. The race is
on to develop new banana varieties that are both tasty to
eat and resilient enough to survive attack from Panama
disease.

As the U.S. Department of Agriculture
prepares guidelines for labelling products that contain
genetically modified ingredients, a new study from the
University of Vermont reveals that a simple disclosure can
improve consumer attitudes toward GMO food.

Led by Jane Kolodinsky, an applied
economist in UVM's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences,
the study compared levels of consumer opposition to GMO
foods in Vermont -- the only U.S. state to have implemented
a mandatory labelling policy -- with consumer attitudes in
the rest of the U.S.

The analysis showed
opposition to GMO food fell by 19% in Vermont after the
implementation of mandatory labels. more

A new
family of enzymes has been discovered which paves the way to
convert plant waste into sustainable and high-value products
such as nylon, plastics, chemicals, and fuels.

The
discovery was led by members of the same UK-US enzyme
engineering team which, in April, improved a
plastic-digesting enzyme, a potential breakthrough for the
recycling of plastic waste.

The study published in Nature
Communications was led by
Professor John McGeehan at the University of Portsmouth, Dr
Gregg Beckham at the US Department of Energy’s National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Professor Jen Dubois at
Montana State University, and Professor Ken Houk at the
University of California, Los Angeles.

Total area under transgenic crops went up by 3 per cent
globally in 2017 to nearly 190 million hectares (mha) from
around 185 mha in the previous year, according to a report
by an organisation that tracks GM acreages around the world.

This increase is
due primarily to greater profitability stemming from higher
commodity prices, increased global and domestic market
demand, and available seed technologies, said the
International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech
Applications (ISAAA) in the report. more

Four
new interdisciplinary projects received £1.8 million to
improve the sustainability of UK farming. Funded in the
third round of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and
Innovation Club (SARIC), the grants have been awarded by
BBSRC and NERC, alongside 12 other industry partners.

The projects include exploring
biological management strategies to control insect
populations, and investigation of the use of sheep in arable
rotations. The funded translational projects include a novel
soil health monitoring approach for livestock farming and
development of a farmer decision support tool to assist with
systemic grassland management.

UK
universities and research centres which improve the
resilience, sustainability and quality of major crops will
benefit from a funding package worth around £5.3 million
over five years, Environment Secretary Michael Gove
announced today.

The
funding will go to four leading agricultural research
centres to help develop new technologies and environmentally
friendly production for farmers and growers across the
country.

They will focus on boosting
productivity for pulses, wheat, leafy vegetables and oilseed
rape as part of Defra’s Crop Genetic Improvement Networks
(GINs).

Growers are being urged to invite MPs on to their farms this
harvest as part of a major campaign to highlight the
importance of the cereals sector to the UK’s food and drink
industry.

Launched by the NFU on the first day of Cereals, the Your
Harvest campaign aims to raise the political profile of the
arable sector – and emphasise its contribution to the
economy – as the government prepares to publish its
Agriculture Bill detailing its policies for farming after
Brexit.

It comes amid concern that the
government’s determination to deliver a “green” Brexit risks
failing to recognise that farmers are primarily food
producers and businesses in addition to their role as
stewards of the countryside and the rural environment.

Creating a best practice guide to sharing farm data is the
focus of a new consultation launched by the Agriculture and
Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).

The
project will develop a set of principles to help promote and
facilitate data sharing within the agricultural industry.
Based on input from farmers and the wider value chain, the
aim is for an industry-supported code to be produced later
this year.

AHDB chief strategy officer Tom Hind said: “Finding
an effective way of removing the frictions surrounding the
sharing of data is a critical step in unlocking the full
potential of that data in our industry.”

Farmers across the country are to receive £23.5m in small
grants allocated to boost farming productivity, the
government has today confirmed.

More
than 3,500 grants worth £23.5 million have been allocated
from the Countryside Productivity Small Grants scheme
(CPSG).

The scheme will help farmers to
purchase the equipment they need to make their businesses
more productive, with grants available to aid electronic
identification of livestock, improve the application of
manures, and introduce guidance systems to aid precision
farming.

A new
scoping study that will drive the future direction of
genetic improvement in the British sheep industry has been
announced.

Funded
by Defra, the project will be led by Scotland’s Rural
College in collaboration with AHDB, the National Sheep
Association (NSA), AbacusBio and the Centre of Innovation
Excellence in Livestock (CIEL).

The project team, made up of industry
experts and researchers, will also recommend solutions that
deliver breeding goals to maximise genetic, economic and
environmental gain across the sector.

National Reference Centre for Soils to be housed at new
agri-informatics facility at Cranfield

A
‘ground-breaking’ ceremony today commemorated the start of
construction on a new £3.2 million agri-informatics facility
at Cranfield University. The new facility will provide the
UK with a centre of excellence in data science related to
precision agriculture.

The
new facility will be the home of the National Reference
Centre for Soils and associated Land information system,
LandIS. It will be shared with Agri-EPI Centre who will
focus on agri-tech research and innovation.

Funding for the
facility has come from Innovate UK, Agri-EPI Centre, the
Wolfson Foundation and the University itself, with
construction being completed in 2019. more

Farming Online, 6 June 2018

France backs GM labelling law for meat and dairy

French
politicians have
backed a proposal for mandatory labelling of meat and dairy
products from animals raised on genetically modified (GM)
feed.

The
proposal is contained in the first draft of president
Emmanuel Macron’s Food and Agriculture Bill, which is being
debated in French parliament.

The Bill is also seeking to
make it mandatory for labels to include details of
pesticides used on fruit and vegetables.

German
chemical giant Bayer will ditch the controversial Monsanto
name as it prepares to close a $63bn takeover of the US seed
and spray company on Thursday.

Monsanto, a 117-year-old brand, has long attracted criticism
from environmental campaigners who oppose its use of
genetically modified seed, and the brand was recently ranked
the 16th most-hated in the US.

The combined entity will create the world’s largest
seeds and agrochemical supplier despite Dow’s merger with
Dupont and ChemChina’s takeover of Syngenta.

Businesses have a wealth of data on-farm which could be used
to boost both productivity and profitability but farmers
must feel motivated to collect and share it.

A
conference run by Agrimetrics, a big data centre of
excellence for the agrifood chain, heard how farmers must be
incentivised to use data, either through rewards such as
’insights’ or through some form of payment.

Prof Richard Tiffin, chief scientific
officer, Agrimetrics, said trust was also an important
element, as farmers and growers could be wary about where
their data was shared, who it was shared with and where it
ended up.

The
European Commission has said that the sale and supply of
neonicotinoid actives clothianidin, imidacloprid and
thiamethoxam for outdoor use will cease by September 19,
2018 at the latest, with the sale, storage and use of seed
treated with them ending on December 19, 2018 at the latest,
according to the Agricultural Industries Confederation
(AIC).

However, it is up to member states how
they wish to implement the ban and some may go for an
earlier date, says AIC head of crop protection Hazel Doonan.
Hopefully people would still be able to drill winter wheat
treated with a neonicotinoid seed dressing this autumn but
it is not certain, she said.

UK
food and farming sector unites to set Brexit objectives for
government

Leaders of over 100 organisations from across the nation's
food supply chain have put their names to a manifesto
setting out the key principles that can help ensure Brexit
is a success for the supply of food in the UK.

The UK Food Supply Chain Manifesto,
released today, has been drawn up by organisations
representing farmers producing the raw ingredients and their
suppliers, right through to manufacturers and retailers. It
sets out the need for positive outcomes on trade, labour,
regulation and domestic agricultural policy.

British government sparks new green
revolution with £100m investment in 'super-crops'

Britain is helping breed a new generation
of “super-crops” not only resistant to climate change, pests
and disease but also fortified with vital vitamins and
minerals.

The initiative could save the lives of
hundreds of thousands of children who die each year from
poor nutrition in developing countries as well as
supplementing diets in the west.

The Department for
International Development (Dfid) has quietly invested more
than £100m into breeding the new generation of super-crops
which now stand poised to create what experts are calling a
“second green revolution”. more

The Telegraph, 26 May 2018

Scientists look at ways farmers can move away from
'damaging' plastic

A
research group is looking at ways to move farmers away from
using potentially-damaging plastic, which could be affecting
the soil and plants it touches.

Plastic soil mulch is currently favoured by farmers and
gardeners, with millions of acres of farmland covered with
it worldwide every year.

But scientists at Coventry University’s
Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience are now
investigating alternatives to using the potentially-damaging
plastic.

A £6m
Centre for Dairy Science has been opened at the University
of Nottingham’s Sutton Bonington campus, intended to “cement
the UK’s position” as a global leader in dairy research. The
new facility has been jointly funded by the university and
the Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Livestock
(Ciel), and by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.

It
will see a significant expansion in the university’s dairy
herd, from 240 cows to 360, together with a new
“cutting-edge” laboratory, eight robotic milking machines
and a number robotic scrapers.

“This state-of-the art-facility will allow the UK’s
dairy industry to work with leading researchers at the
University of Nottingham to develop solutions the industry
needs to build on its already excellent position in animal
health and welfare,” said Ian Cox from Innovate UK.

Is
leaving the EU an opportunity to harness the potential of
agri-tech?

A
group of leading industry and research figures has agreed a
series agri-tech measures that will be recommended to
Government as a means of making British farming more
profitable and productive post-Brexit.

Anthea McIntyre MEP, the Conservatives’ agriculture
spokesperson in Europe, has once again brought together
scientific, engineering and agricultural experts to devise a
policy wish list from the UK Government as it devises a
post-Brexit
farming and land-use policy.

The result will be a consensus report that McIntyre,
speaking at the gathering, said she will "push with [Defra
secretary] Michael Gove and his ministers". Though she
cautioned: "We don’t know what the Brexit deal will look
like, so how much we will still be bound by EU regulation."
The proposals range across sustainability, GM crops,
plant-protection products and innovation more widely.

Better
crop genetics and the use of intercropping could improve the
success of growing legumes in parts of the UK, helping
fulfil demand for high protein livestock feed. Despite
growing demand from UK livestock producers for
locally-sourced protein feedstock, about 60 per cent of
protein crops used for animal feed are imported, largely
because of the difficulty in growing consistently high
yielding legumes in some parts of the UK, according to Dr
Robin Walker, a researcher at Scotland’s Rural College.

According to Dr Walker, the main barrier to increasing the
production of home-grown proteins is the inconsistent yield
and quality which is associated with many legumes,
particularly in northern England and Scotland where demand
for livestock feed is high. He believes intercropping could
be a potential solution.“SRUC trial work from the 2016 and
2017 seasons showed how intercropping cereals with grain
legumes in spring can lead to more reliable production of
high protein feed, particularly in north of the UK.”

The advent of genetically modified crops caused a scandal in
the 1990s. But the younger generation is largely relaxed
about eating GM foods, new research has shown, as farmers called for a post-Brexit technology
revolution.

Two thirds of under-30s believe technology is a good thing
for farming and support futuristic farming techniques,
according to a survey. Only 20 per cent of millennials
expressed concerns about the benefits of gene editing or genetically modifying
crops,
despite decades of opposition and media warnings.

The poll of more than 1,600 18 to
30-year-olds, carried out for the Agricultural Biotechnology
Council (ABC), also found that around two thirds of young
people support the use of drones in livestock farming to
count sheep and in arable farming to assess, monitor and
spray crops.

Scientists called for the urgent development of alternative
pest control methods after the EU widened its partial ban on
three key neonicotinoids to cover all outdoor crops.

Ian
Toth, a senior scientist at the James Hutton Institute,
said: “The use of pesticides has been such an important part
of crop production for decades that loss or reduction in the
use of such chemicals, including neonicotinoids, will almost
certainly affect crop yields.”

This would ultimately affect food prices for
consumers, said Professor Toth. He added: “Now more than
ever it is so important that we find alternative methods of
control through more resistant crops, biocontrol and other
integrated pests management approaches.”

British farmers are spending too much on their farm
machinery and are not getting a return on their expenditure.
AHDB and Strutt & Parker looked at machinery and labour
costs across the 21 farms in the Monitor Farm scheme.

Although the reviews have found huge
variation between farms, the key thing is that machinery
costs are too high. They found that growers are using very
high capacity machinery and are not getting the return on
expenditure in either reduced labour hours, costs or higher
yields.

European Union countries have voted to widen a partial ban
on neonicotinoid pesticides so it covers all outdoor crops.
The European Commission proposal to ban three key
neonicotinoids used by farmers was endorsed by EU member
states on Friday (27 April).

The
use of active substances imidacloprid, clothianidin and
thiamethoxam will now only be allowed in greenhouses where
they are not exposed to bees.

The ban was backed by Defra, which said it was
committed to enhancing the environment and welcomed the vote
in support of further restrictions on neonicotinoids.

Agriculture is among the sectors likely to “struggle most”
to attract workers after Brexit, a government adviser has
warned.

Alan
Manning, chairman of the Migration Advisory Committee said
farming, food processing, hospitality and warehousing were
all likely to struggle to attract enough workers after the
UK leaves the EU in March 2019.

New immigration rules would hit lower skilled
workers looking to come to the UK – making it difficult for
industries such as agriculture which rely on recruiting
temporary and full-time employees from overseas, said Prof
Manning.

Academics at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS),
the University of Strathclyde (UoS) and the James Hutton
Institute (JHI), led by Glasgow based product design firm
Wideblue, have teamed up to develop a new type of
hyperspectral imaging (HSI) system.

The
government-funded collaboration has the potential to
introduce an affordable spectral imaging technology to help
agricultural businesses monitor and maximise crop production
in fields and greenhouses.

The sensors in development are expected
to be up to 90 per cent cheaper than equivalent equipment
currently on the market and will allow farmers to monitor
various crop attributes including plant health, hydration
levels and disease indicators.

Individual pastures on livestock farms yield surprisingly
dissimilar benefits to a farm’s overall agricultural income,
and those differences are most likely attributable to the
varying levels of “soil health” provided by its grazing
livestock, reveals a study published today.

The
study, produced by an interdisciplinary team of 13
scientists and two PhD students from Rothamsted Research,
evaluates how efficiently nutrients are used on a livestock
farm, on a field-by-field basis for the first time, and
links soil health to animal growth.

The team has developed a method to
derive the contribution of individual fields to an animal’s
growth and, in the process, has opened up the possibility of
using field-scale metrics as indicators of animal
performance and agricultural productivity. The findings
appear in the journal Animal.

US
regulators have ruled crops altered using gene-editing
techniques do not need to come under the same restrictions
as genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Although there has not yet been a decision taken on the
issue in Europe, scientists in the UK have greeted the US
department of agriculture’s (USDA) move with relief.

Ahead of the ruling, UK researchers here had been
concerned the USDA would place gene editing within the same
lengthy regulatory process as GMOs. And they feared such a
move would sway the EU Commission towards adopting a similar
stance.

A new
study shows isolation of a gene controlling the shape and
size of spikelets in wheat may help breeders deliver
increased yields.

The
findings discovered by the John Innes Centre gives breeders
a new tool to accelerate the global quest to improve wheat,
and also highlights a range of next generation techniques
available for fundamental research into wheat.

Dr Scott Boden from the John Innes
Centre, whose crop genetics laboratory led the study
alongside colleagues from Australia and Cambridge, said it
represented a breakthrough both in lab and field.

New
genomic tool searches wheat's wild past to improve crops of
the future

A
newly launched genetic directory will enable researchers and
breeders to scan the genomes of wild relatives of modern
wheat to find disease-fighting properties lost to
domestication.

The time-travelling trawl is possible following the
launch of the Open Wild Wheat, a directory which includes
the genetic sequences of 150 wild wheats belonging to the
goat grass species Aegilops
tauschii ssp. strangulata.

The directory is the
crowd-funded outcome of an international consortium led by
wheat researchers at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK, and
Kansas State University. more

Farming Online, 5 April 2018

'Send in the drones' to protect soil

Squadrons of drones should be deployed to locate and
penalise farmers who let soil run off their fields, a report
will say.

The proposals come from the Angling Trust, WWF and
the Rivers Trust - with support from the RSPB. Their
preliminary briefing has been seen by the Environment
Secretary Michael Gove. The groups say poor farming is the
chief cause of the UK's decline in the health of rivers, and
a major contributor to flooding.

RUMA
has announced that former Chief Veterinary Officer Nigel
Gibbens is joining its Independent Scientific Group. He will
sit alongside other eminent scientists from the veterinary,
medical and microbiological field, providing insight and
recommendations to inform RUMA’s policy on the responsible
use of medicines in farm animals.

Speaking of his decision to join the group,
Professor Gibbens says he has been very impressed with
recent progress made by the UK livestock sectors on
reducing, refining or replacing use of antibiotics. But he
says it is now time to look forward to the next steps, and
how science can support further efforts to reduce on-farm
antimicrobial use.

‘Bee-friendly’ neonicotinoids which protect crops from pests
without harming honeybees and bumblebees could be on the
radar. Findings from Rothamsted Research said immunity in
two species of bees to one neonicotinoid insecticide but not
to others should prompt the substance to be considered ‘on
its own risks and merits, not just its name’.

They
suggested it was due to a bee’s biochemical defence system
which defines its sensitivity to insecticides by enabling it
to metabolise the chemicals safely.

“Some neonicotinoids are highly toxic
to bees but others have very low acute toxicity; in public
debate, they tend to get tarred with the same brush,” said
Lin Field, head of biointeractions and crop protection and
lead of the group at Rothamsted.

The UK
government is failing rural communities and the natural
environment, a report says. The Lords Select Committee
document says there should be radical change in how the
countryside is looked after.

It recommends stripping the environment department
Defra of its power to regulate on rural affairs, and
reforming the Countryside Code. The Lords said Defra had
focused too much on farming and agriculture, rather than
other aspects of rural life.

Potato
growers supplying McDonald’s are set to benefit from the
provision of free agronomy skills training to improve crop
performance and quality with the launch of the MacFry Potato
Academy.

The
Academy is a joint initiative between NIAB and McDonald’s UK
and Ireland, in association with potato suppliers McCain
Foods and Lamb Weston.

In 2015 McDonald’s made a commitment to
source 100 per cent British potatoes for all their UK fries.
As the business sources in excess of 280,000 tonnes of
British potatoes each year, the MacFry Potato Academy will
be a key component in ensuring a vibrant and sustainable
potato industry that can secure a growing volume of great
quality ingredients, according to the company.

Scientists develop harvesting robots that could
revolutionise field vegetable production

Scientists at the University of Plymouth are developing
ground-breaking technology which could assist fruit and
vegetable growers with the challenges they face in
harvesting crops.

Increasing demand for home grown produce, coupled with
concern about workforce shortages in the wake of Brexit, are
leaving farmers across the UK facing a unique set of
pressures.

The
Automated Brassica harvesting in Cornwall (ABC) project has
secured funding from Agri-Tech Cornwall, a three-year,
£10million initiative part-funded by the European Regional
Development Fund, with match-funding from Cornwall Council.

New
research network involving 3,500 cattle aims to promote
innovation

A new
research network involving 3,500 cattle and 30 projects is
to be created to promote innovation in the farming industry.
SmartCow – a research network of 3,500 cattle and 30
pan-European projects – is to be created by the French
National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA).

It
will increase access to the most advanced research
facilities and equipment for the cattle sector across
Europe, and aims to improve the quality and ethics of cattle
research through identification and promotion of best
practices, new measurements techniques, and smart
technologies.

The network will promote innovation in
the European cattle sector, and UK-based Agrimetrics is
supporting the consortium of ten research institutes with
its expertise in big data for the agri-food industry.

A British study. published in Nature Communications this week, has
doubled the number of rumen microbes sequenced and available
on public databases. This progress is still “early days”,
but could influence cattle breeding, bovine nutrition and
even biofuel technology in the years ahead, researchers
said.

Led by researchers from the
University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute and Scotland’s
Rural College (SRUC), the study analysed rumen microbes in
43 commercial beef cattle (Limousin, Aberdeen Angus,
Charolais) at the SRUC’s Beef and Sheep Research Centre.

Scientists are injecting genes into pea plants to speed up
introducing better disease resistance and improving the
nutrition of this pulse crop within the next five years.

Adding
valuable genes from wild pea varieties from Africa and Asia
is set to bring improved resistance to the potentially
devastating disease downy mildew, with fungicide control
being limited to seed treatments.Researchers are also well
down the path of improving the nutrition of combine peas
both for human consumption and for animal feed to
potentially reduce expensive imports of soya.

Claire Domoney at the John Innes Centre says
speedier breeding techniques mean these new beneficial
traits can now be introduced more quickly into farm crops.

Farmers, landowners and food producers have a
once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the future of
English farming and the environment, with a consultation
launched today (27 February) by Environment Secretary
Michael Gove.

The
government’s proposals will see money redirected from direct
payments under the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), which
are based on the amount of land farmed, to a new system of
paying farmers “public money for public goods” - principally
their work to enhance the environment and invest in
sustainable food production.

Other public goods which could be
supported include investment in technology and skills to
improve productivity, providing public access to farmland
and the countryside, enhanced welfare standards for
livestock and measures to support the resilience of rural
and upland communities.

The
vault storing the world's most precious seeds is taking
delivery on Monday of donations that will take it to the one
million mark.

More
than 70,000 crops will be added to frozen storage chambers
buried deep within a mountain in the Arctic Circle. Cereal
staples, unusual crops like the Estonian onion potato, and
barley used to brew Irish beer are among the consignments.

Monday marks the tenth anniversary of the Global
Seed Vault in Svalbard.

In a keynote speech to the NFU conference on Wednesday (21
February), Business Secretary Greg Clark highlighted how new
technology is boosting farmers’ earning power and making
agri-businesses more productive and profitable.

Mr
Clark has announced the £90 million new funding to bring
together the UK’s agri-food sector with expertise in
robotics, AI and data science.

The funding, delivered as part of the
new the Industrial Strategy
Challenge Fund, will make it easier for food and
agri-business to embrace technology and innovation.

The
race is on to become the dominant digital platform in the
agriculture sector, harnessing technologies that boost
agricultural productivity through data capture and
integration, according to new research.

PA Consulting Group's research creates a detailed overview of
the digital agri-tech market, tracking 136 deals - including
partnerships, acquisitions and investments - for 11 of the
biggest agri-tech businesses and 200 start-ups and
technology companies operating in the space since 1997.

The report offers five insights into
the digital agritech market, including the need for closer
collaboration between the established players and start-up
companies. The companies that fail to collaborate will be
left behind, says Oliver Lofink, lead author of the report
and a digital agriculture expert at PA Consulting Group.

Temperature resilient crops now an “achievable dream” say
authors of new study

Breeding temperature-resilient crops is an “achievable
dream” in one of the most important species of
commercially-cultivated plants, according to a new study by
the John Innes Centre which has established a genetic link
between increased temperature and the problem of pod shatter
in the crop.

The
research, by the team led by Dr Vinod Kumar and Professor
Lars Østergaard, reveals that pod shatter is enhanced at
higher temperature across diverse species in the
Brassicaceae family, which also includes cauliflower,
broccoli and kale.

This new understanding brings the
prospect of creating crops that are better adapted to warmer
temperatures a step closer.

A
promising technique that makes maize more productive even in
droughts has now been unpicked and looks set to do the same
for a range of other crops, including wheat and rice.

Three
years ago, biotechnologists demonstrated in field trials
that they could increase the productivity of maize by
introducing a rice gene into the plant that regulated the
accumulation of sucrose in kernels and led to more kernels
per maize plant.

They knew that the rice gene affected
the performance of a natural chemical in maize, trehalose
6-phosphate (T6P), which influences the distribution of
sucrose in the plant. But they were keen to discover more
intimate details of the relationships governing the
increased productivity.

Stem
rust could wipe out 70 percent or more of barley and wheat
crops scientists warn

A
devastating disease that attacks barley and wheat - the
world's most widely grown crop - could re-emerge in Britain,
scientists said today. Over 80 percent of 57 wheat varieties
tested in Britain are susceptible to the strain of stem rust
that was discovered in an infected plant in Suffolk in 2013,
the first time the disease has reappeared since 1955, they
said.

The
same strain battered wheat crops in Ethiopia, and caused
smaller outbreaks in Sweden, Denmark and Germany in 2013,
a study in the journal Communications Biology said.

These outbreaks, as well as the
infection in Britain, are "a warning sign" to take immediate
action, Diane Saunders, a plant pathologist at the UK-based
John Innes Centre and lead author of the study, told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Conservative MEPs have condemned a European parliament
decision to set up a new special committee to review the
EU’s authorisation process for pesticides, with a particular
focus on glyphosate.

The
new committee has 30 members and has given itself nine
months to examine the licensing procedures, in particular
whether there are any failures in the way substances like
glyphosate are approved.

“It is regrettable that there are individuals in
parliament who remain determined to ignore the science and
keep kicking this particular political football,” said
Conservative MEP Ashley Fox. “We believe the EU already has
a system for examining and licensing pesticides, which is
fit for purpose. It places scientists front and centre, not
politicians with an axe to grind or a campaign to advance.”

An MP
has said teenagers around the country should be offered a
GCSE in Agriculture to help Britain gain a more productive
workforce.

According to Conservative MP for York Outer Julian Sturdy,
who is an ex-farmer, the course could help create a "better
skilled and more productive workforce" for Britain.

Mr Sturdy will today (7 February) lead
a debate in Westminster on introducing the qualification,
which he says would allow teenagers who are interested in
food and farming to get a step on the ladder “at the
earliest possible opportunity”.

The
NFU has set out to reassure the public that farmers are not
using pesticides excessively after a recent poll found 67
per cent of respondents wanted to reduce their use.

The
survey, carried out on behalf of the Pesticide Action
Network and campaign group SumOfUs, also showed 78 per cent
of those polled would like the Government to provide more
support to UK farmers to cut their pesticide use.

63 per
cent of the total number of respondents wanted to retain EU
regulations on pesticides after Brexit, with 57 per cent of
leave voters and 77 per cent of remain voters feeling the
same way.

A new
facility to assist advances in crop science is taking shape
in the Norfolk countryside. The field experimental station
at Church Farm, Bawburgh, will allow scientists at the John
Innes Centre to carry out ground-breaking research in crop
improvements.

Bringing together lab and field research in one location
will further research in understanding how genes control
plant growth in the field. The aim is to create tools for
plant breeders to produce new varieties that are more
reliable, nutritious and resilient to pests and diseases.

Research that could lead to cows producing more milk,
chickens laying better-quality eggs and crops being able to
withstand droughts or disease received a funding injection
of about $174 million from Britain’s Department for
International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.

The Gates Foundation will invest $40 million in projects to
develop livestock vaccines and make them accessible to the
poorest small-scale farmers across Africa and South Asia
through the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary
Medicines, a public-private partnership based in Edinburgh.

Britain will support CGIAR, a global research body, with
funding of £90 million ($128.25 million) over three years to
deliver new farm technologies that will support food
security by producing more nutritious and climate-resilient
crops.
more

Reuters, 26 January 2018

New
£1m poultry research facility aims to improve bird welfare

A new
£1m poultry facility offering specialist and
industry-focused research into both laying hen and broiler
health, behaviour and productivity has opened at the
University of Bristol’s Veterinary School.

The
new poultry facility, which features fully-monitored and
controlled hatching housing, sits alongside Bristol's other
agricultural facilities for cattle, pig, sheep and
aquaculture.

It forms part of
the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL), a
national consortium comprising 12 research institutes across
the UK, funded by Innovate UK, to develop new
industry-needed solutions as well as commercial trial farms
for real world results. CIEL is also one of the UK’s four
Agri-Tech Centres established as a key pillar of the
government’s Agri-Tech Strategy. more

Farming UK, 24 January 2018

AHDB
commits £5m to fix ‘fragmented’ farming innovation pipeline

The
Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) is
committing £5m to fund Britain’s next generation of
agricultural experts in an effort to overhaul the industry’s
“fragmented” innovation and skills pipeline.

It
will plough the funds into supporting PhD university
students over the next five years, following its recent
report which identified a UK productivity gap worth over
£4bn in lost Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Modern agriculture is a diverse and
highly advanced technological industry which has attracted
increasing numbers of university students over the last 10
years. But industry experts have warned that the UK must
overhaul its “fragmented” innovation and skills pipeline to
drive change within the sector and keep pace with competitor
countries.

Crops obtained by the plant breeding technique of
mutagenesis do not fall under laws restricting the use of
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) but individual EU
states can regulate their use, an adviser to Europe’s top
court said on Thursday.

Mutagenesis, which generates a genetic mutation that can
occur naturally or be induced, has been around for decades
but advances in the technique have ignited a row over
whether it should face the same EU rules as GMOs, which are
often subject to a long process of scrutiny to win approval.

Michal Bobek, whose advice as advocate general is not
binding but usually followed by European Court of Justice
(ECJ) judges, said European Union rules on GMOs exempted
mutagenesis and did not differentiate between old and new
techniques.

Limagrain, the world’s fourth-largest
seed maker, will consider moving its research activities out
of France if field trials in its home market continue to be
sabotaged by opponents of genetically modified crops.

The French cooperative group was
targeted last month by protestors who invaded test fields
southeast of Paris and scattered non-commercial seed. That
was the latest in a series of actions by opponents of
gene-editing technology, which they say will herald a new
generation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Limagrain said the incident ruined a
37-hectare trial of wheat based on conventional breeding and
showed the risk of a repeat of virulent debate over GMOs.

An
AHDB Horticulture survey has revealed that 82 per cent of UK
growers believe recent developments in automation have
helped reduce their reliance on labour.

Growers also report key areas for future investment should
be focused on harvesting and improvements within the
pack-house.

Areas of
production with particularly high manual labour inputs –
such as harvesting – are high priority for future research
and investment, with nearly 60 per cent of growers
identifying this as an area to focus on. more

Farming Online, 9 January 2018

Seed
breeders warn of major Brexit impact

Seed
breeders have warned that British production would decline
if growers have less access to new varieties after Brexit.

The UK
could end up producing less fresh produce and importing more
without access to European variety catalogues and protection
of Intellectual Property, seed breeders have warned.

The news is a major reversal of
pro-Brexit reports in the national press that have suggested
Britain could become more self-sufficient in fresh produce,
and comes as UK breeders have voiced fears that the impact
on their sector has been forgotten, despite its significance
to UK production and wider economy.

Scientists have drastically cut the time needed to breed new
crop varieties using a combination of artificial
environments and intense day-long lighting regimes using LED
lights.

The
speed-breeding platform allows as many as six generations of
wheat to be grown in a single year, three times faster than
the shuttle-breeding techniques currently used by breeders
and researchers.

Six generations is also possible for bread wheat,
durum wheat, barley, pea and chickpea, with four possible
for canola. Brande Wulff of the John Innes Centre, Norwich,
part of the international team with the University of
Queensland and University of Sydney, said the improvement
rates of several staple crops has stalled, but this new
technique could overcome this.

AHDB’s
latest Horizon report said improved productivity was
essential to capitalise on Brexit, feed the UK population
and protect the environment

The UK
has fallen significantly behind major competitors in its
growth in productivity, with countries such as the USA and
the Netherlands growing three times faster. This
productivity gap was worth over £4.3bn in lost GDP between
2000 and 2013.

AHDB’s
Driving productivity growth together
report, launched at the Oxford Farming Conference, warned a
revolution in productivity was necessary to capitalise on
Brexit, continue to feed the country and protect the
environment.

The
USA and the Netherlands are out-performing the UK on
agricultural productivity by as much as three times,
according to a new report.

The AHDB study, as part of its Horizon
series looking at the pressing Brexit questions and
scenarios, states that UK agricultural productivity is
lagging.

Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in the
UK, which measures all inputs into outputs, has fallen
behind that of many major competitors, averaging 0.9 per
cent per year as opposed to 3.5 per cent in the Netherlands,
and 3.2 per cent in the USA.